Indonesia has not been a huge success as an independent country despite ample resources and a large population. Some feel it is because the country traded one colonial master for another. If only power could be shifted to institutions controlled by natives. That would get the party started, the Golkar party. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
Here we have a topical bird stamp meant for world collectors from a poorer post colonial nation. There are two signs on it of a greater ambition. One is that they at least show you a bird from Java. The other is the poor, dated, local printing. They were at least doing for themselves, a functioning group necessary to get the party started.
Todays stamp is issue A403, a 200 Rupiah stamp issued by Indonesia on July 1st, 1992. It was a four stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.
Indonesia has a population that is about 2 percent people of Chinese heritage. This was true in the Dutch conducted census of 1930 and continues today. That may be a surprise to people outside as the majority of immigrant Indonesian communities in the USA and Australia are Chinese. At the time of being the Dutch East Indies, the Chinese were counted as a separate class and kept out of pieces of the economy. That changed with independence. The Chinese quickly took a leading role in the economy and were a powerful force for secularism and communism in politics. Ties to mainland China were close.
Well how did that work out for the native population? Not very well. The wealth that used to head for Holland now went to the Chinese and there was much resentment of flashy Chinese wealth in Indonesia. Wasn’t that supposed to be over after the Dutch left. In the late 1960s, Indonesia got a new leader President Suharto. He tried to purge the leading Chinese and reorganize Society. He thought instead of political parties there should be a leadership of functional, ethnic Indonesian groups. The A group was the armed forces, the B group was the Bureaucrats and the big G group which was everybody else. There is much talk of cruelty and repression of the Chinese but I would point out the continuity of the Chinese population despite their lower birth rate.
The problems got a little better but not entirely. Obviously in a country like Indonesia the people of the G group just don’t matter. The people of the A and B group can be often bought off by the rich Chinese. Over 30 years after the reorganization of society under Suharto’s Golkar system, the 2 percent of the people that are of Chinese heritage control 73% of the financial assets of the country.
After Suharto the Golkar movement was forced to become just a political party. They have been in and out of power. There platform currently is a program to lift the average Indonesian to the wealth of the member of a first tier nation. They hope to achieve this by 2045 when by their measure, there are others see https://the-philatelist.com/2017/11/24/well-we-think-we-are-independant-we-have-a-constitution-a-flag-and-austrian-stamps/ , Indonesia will have been independent from the Dutch for 100 years. You could argue that the Chinese rose based on merit and Indonesia is not just a colonial outpost of China as it was for the also few in number Dutch. Can a minority of 2 percent really be allowed to control three quarters of the economy Eventually the writing on the wall in southern Africa said no whatever the consequence. So far Golkar in Indonesia is just a party and the Chinese are still dancing.
Well my drink is empty and being stuck at home I may have another and rewatch “Crazy Rich Asians”. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.